Is it just me, or were the vast majority of the people doing exceptionally,
dangerously STUPID things on SV's Viewer Videos doing so on motorcycles?
LOTS of bike stupidity on public roads, for example. I did immediately
pick up on the bits of what I thought were Goeke-Cam footage -- and there
were literally bits of it on the show -- but then on the closing credits, I
saw it was Alan Dahl's Son of Goeke-Cam. Saw a couple of other familiar
names up there, too, but I really needed to tape the credits and slow-mo
the contributor names.
SV ran a sober disclaimer before the show -- the standard "Don't Try This
At Home" stuff, but then, unfortunately, devoted a disproportionate amount
of airtime to stuff that would be better on a "Stupid People Crash & Burn"
VHS cassette ( "Only $9.99!! PLUS IF YOU ACT NOW... WE'LL INCLUDE THIS
**FREE** COPY OF 'UNHELMETED MOTORCYCLE IDIOTS' WITH YOUR PAID CREDIT CARD
ORDER!!!"). Even the winner's video, which had lots of desert bikers, also
had those bikers using ditches for ramps to jump across public streets,
irrigation canals, and the like.
I had such high hopes for this when they announced the contest -- Goeke,
Alan Dahl, and a lot of other on-board camera folks from Solo would have a
shot at showing what we do, we'd see some good club-racing footage, etc.
What we got was a lot of demolition-derby -- including what looked like a
couple guys out in the holler' somewhere staging their own demo derby just
for the camcorder and staging their own monster truck car crush show, but
with a Pinto(!) instead of Bigfoot -- and boneheads doing motorcycle
burnouts in the middle of public roads, carrying wheelies down the highway,
videotaping the speedometer -- at night -- displaying the far side of 150
mph while on a public road, etc.
I'm not some old stick-in-the-mud, and I've been known to treat the speed
limit as an advisory, not an absolute, but c'mon folks, let's encourage
*responsible* high-performance driving and cycling among the great
unwashed. I'd hoped SpeedVision would be the one media outlet that
understood that. I suppose I was wrong.
Matt M -- can you maybe pass this on to someone in SV's programming
department? I don't have the comment address handy here at work.
Jim Crider
autojim@att.net
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